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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23822533">"I'm not in love with [x]. I'm in love with you."</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/NinesByDawn/pseuds/NinesByDawn'>NinesByDawn</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Nest Building [19]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Teen Titans (Animated Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fluff, Mathematics, Slice of Life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:20:47</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,019</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23822533</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/NinesByDawn/pseuds/NinesByDawn</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>RobRae Week 2020 Day 6 prompt.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dick Grayson/Raven</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Nest Building [19]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1655041</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>32</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>"I'm not in love with [x]. I'm in love with you."</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is the lovechild of physics ruining my life and my refusal to write an angsty story</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Robin rested his head against his hand as the chalk squeaked against the blackboard. It didn’t help that the room was fairly cramped to begin with—it had been an empty room with no windows that the Titans had converted into a makeshift classroom with a few desks, chalk and blackboard, and a pointer stick. His head slumped further to the side, as his eyes glossed over the equations and diagrams on the board.</p><p>“And so, you draw your Gaussian surface like so,” Cyborg droned, drawing a cylinder around the rod pictured on the board. “Then, you just use your equation and solve for the electric field and…yo Robin!”</p><p>“What?” Robin snapped back to reality.        </p><p>“Are you even paying attention?”        </p><p>“I think I get it?” he said hesitantly.</p><p>“So what’s the electric field around the rod here then?” Cyborg asked, folding his arms. Robin sighed and stood up, walking over to the board and taking the chalk.</p><p>“What’s the point of drawing a cylinder around this anyway?” he groused. “How do I even know all this shit isn’t just made up? Why are we choosing a cylinder to begin with?”</p><p>“Don’t ask questions. Just memorize it,” Cyborg advised. “I mean, if you want to go into the theory, we can. But I’m guessing you just wanna know enough physics to be able to fix these toys of yours up.”</p><p>“You got that right. I want more of working on <em>this</em>—” Robin said, smacking his hand on the blueprint taped up on the top of the blackboard, “And less of this <em>math</em>.”</p><p>“All this is necessary to learn if you want to actually have these tasers you love so much, and not just a pair of metal sticks,” Cyborg retorted. “And honestly, even after we get through this, I still have to do a little more thinking to figure out how we’re gonna make this work.”</p><p>“Fine. Then can we maybe do something a little more…basic?”</p><p>“It doesn’t get more basic than this,” Cyborg said. “These are standard electricity and magnetism concepts. I can try and make a simpler problem, but I don’t know if I can do more than that for you.”</p><p>“What are we up to here?” Robin and Cyborg turned to see Raven stride into the room, holding a book in her arms. She gazed at the board with slight curiosity.</p><p>“Robin’s hit a snag designing some new gadgets,” Cyborg said, gesturing to the blueprints. “So he asked for my help on the technical side of things.”</p><p>“Except I didn’t know it was gonna be this boring,” he muttered. “Or pointless.” Cyborg glared at him as Raven examined the board.</p><p>“Physics? Repulsive,” she said.</p><p>“See?” Robin said.</p><p>Cyborg rolled his eyes. “You think you can help with anything, Rae?” he asked.</p><p>“Hmm…maybe with some of the raw calculations,” she replied, picking up a piece of chalk. “Not so sure about the conceptual part. I suppose you two will have to figure that out. But if you set up the equations I think I can solve it.”</p><p>“I can also process these pretty fast,” Cyborg said, pointing to his dome. “But it never hurts to have someone double-checking.”</p><p>“I can swing by the library later,” Raven said, turning to Robin. “Pick up some textbooks and other references, if that helps.”</p><p>“Sure,” he said, nodding. “Let’s just get through with this soon. I have a lot more to work on too.”</p><p> </p><p>The three of them returned to the classroom later that night, Cyborg having brought some electrical models, Raven a stack of books from the library, and Robin more ideas in his mind about the design of his latest gadget obsession. The problem of incorporating the tasers was something that had been a riddle to him for a while now. He almost wanted to make a call to an old friend, to maybe even make the trip back to meet in person. But there was also something thrilling about being able to solve it himself, with the help of the unique talents of his friends.</p><p>“So, you draw it like this,” Robin said, hesitantly tracing the chalk around the diagram of the rod.</p><p>“Yep. Then you write your equation following the general formula. In this case, you want the surface area of the cylinder,” Cyborg instructed. “Then solve for the E-field.” Raven sat off to the side, flipping through calculus textbooks and occasionally looking up to monitor their progress. She reached into her cloak and checked her communicator. A couple of hours had already passed, and they were making painstakingly slow progress.</p><p>“Alright, we’ve gotten this far,” Robin muttered. “Now there is <em>no</em> way I’m solving that ugly equation.”</p><p>“At least we’re actually making some progress now,” Cyborg said to himself. He scanned over the board, the chalk markings translating into his processors and quickly becoming solutions.</p><p>“This…is unideal,” Raven commented, starting to manually solve the equations herself. Robin folded his arms and leaned against the wall as he watched the other two go to work. Cyborg was done and patiently waiting for Raven. They looked at her for a few moments, before Robin straightened up and walked over to the board.</p><p>“Need help?”</p><p>“Solve this,” she snorted, gesturing with her chalk to the current step. Robin looked over the problem several times, each time becoming more dazed and confused about where to start.</p><p>“Honestly, I’d have trouble solving these manually,” Cyborg said, coming up in between them. “Don’t sweat it, y’all. I’ve got the answers up here, and we can just trust that these are accurate. Let’s not waste time on the dirty work.” He wrote the answers up, and quickly erased the previous diagrams to make more room.</p><p>“I’m glad we have you around,” Robin said, grinning. “Now, what’s next?”</p><p>“Back to the physics?” Cyborg suggested. “I won’t bore you with the details, but we need to set up a couple similar integrals now. These will help you figure out just how much power you can actually fit in this area you’ve designated for electricity.”</p><p>“Sounds like a plan.” The two of them got to working again, the only chatter between them about setting up the various equations. Raven glanced back at the unfinished equation from the last step. The idea of finishing it did intrigue her a little, especially since now she knew the answer she was supposed to get. Her thoughts were interrupted by a sudden stench invading her nostrils, one she knew all too well from the various times the offender had put his bare feet up on the couch in the main room.</p><p>“There you are!” Beast Boy yelled, appearing in the doorway. The three of them spun around to see him laughing and waving his arms. Cyborg grabbed the Stank Ball off his head, gritting his teeth. The two birds both instinctively took steps backwards, the foul odor now expanding into the room. The ball was about the size of a volleyball, and impressively held together even as Cyborg’s hand crushed it in his grip.</p><p>“BEAST BOY!” Cyborg launched the ball back at him, hitting him square in the face before he could react. Beast Boy yelped and backpedaled, and Cyborg stormed after him.</p><p>“Cyborg, wait!” Robin pleaded. “We still need to—” His voice trailed off as Cyborg disappeared around the corner. He sighed, while Raven rolled her eyes and turned back to the board.</p><p>“I guess we’ll have to learn how to solve these annoying integrals for now,” she said.</p><p>Robin sighed again. “Yeah, I guess so. I’ll try to finish what we started here.” They worked in silence for a few minutes, Robin erasing and redrawing his diagrams and Raven still going through the previous equations that Cyborg had plugged into himself.</p><p>“When did you learn how to do calculus, anyway?” he wondered aloud.</p><p>The sound of chalk squeaking stopped and she glanced sideways at him. “There’s not a lot to do in Azarath when you aren’t meditating and they don’t let you roam free anywhere.”</p><p>“So you…learned math. For fun.”</p><p>“Languages were more interesting to me,” she replied. “But I figured it would be useful to have a baseline competency, yes. Clearly, however, I haven’t used this skill in a long time.” She scrutinized the board again, writing a few more lines of equations by her current problem. Robin moved closer to her, examining her work.</p><p>“You’re still better at this than me,” he chuckled. “Maybe you should show me how to solve these.”</p><p>“Hm. It’s getting late,” Raven said. “Maybe you should focus on the practical side of things. We can always wait for Cyborg to get back to do the actual math.”</p><p>“If you say so,” Robin said. He sat back down in a desk, suddenly feeling weary from the time spent doing something so academic. Raven didn’t notice, and kept writing away. She’d solved a majority of the set of equations now, and felt herself growing more confident in her knowledge. Robin watched as the board grew cleaner and the equations dwindled. He felt himself calm down and grow more peaceful, the sensation partly communicated from her calmness through the bond. A smile slowly spread across his face as he observed her.</p><p>“Can we use a different variable?” he asked. “I’m not in love with x. I’m in love with u.”</p><p>“U?” Raven said, confused. She turned around and stared at him for a bit, then pointed to an integral. “I don’t know if that’s the best idea, Boy Blunder. What happens when you have to do a u-substitution here?”</p><p>“W-sub,” he replied, grinning. “Double u. Get it?” Raven stared at him blankly.</p><p>“We’re using x.”</p><p>“Fine.” Robin lounged back in his desk, continuing to observe her behavior. Her lips pressed ever so slightly tighter together when she was thinking or stuck. The writing came in bursts of quick scribbles when she figured something out, but was otherwise controlled and measured, producing neat numbers and letters on the blackboard. He also started to notice her head bobs. They weren’t large movements, but she would tilt her head slightly to each side a few times when transitioning between thinking and writing. Robin’s breath slowed as her patterns lulled him into forgetting about the task at hand. He was no longer processing the equations she was writing on the board, but rather focused fully on her. He rested his hand on his head, a content expression spreading across his face. After another moment, he got up and wordlessly slid behind her, reaching his arms out around her waist. The chalk made a hard squeak as the number she was writing suddenly curved sharply upwards on the board. Robin pulled her in tight against his body and leaned his head in, placing a soft kiss on her cheek. He held his lips there for a few seconds before parting and moving to her ear.</p><p>“I’m not in love with x,” he whispered. “Or math, physics, gadgets, whatever. I’m in love with you.” She glanced back at him momentarily.</p><p>“You think you’re <em>so</em> clever, don’t you?” she said softly, her signature dryness cutting through the moment.</p><p>“Maybe,” Robin replied. His mouth broke into a wide grin, and he kissed her again on the cheek. The empath rolled her eyes and wriggled around in his grip, turning around to face him. She stared into his eyes, then quickly gave him a peck on the lips, before parting.</p><p>“You are <em>so </em>unbelievably corny,” she said, shaking her head.</p><p>“Isn’t that what you love the most about me?” He was still grinning from ear to ear.</p><p>“Get to work, dork,” Raven said, tossing him a piece of chalk and pointing to his side of the board. Robin caught it and moved up to the board, hovering his hand over the spot he had stopped at in his calculations. Before that, though, he couldn’t resist sneaking one more sideways glance at her. Raven sensed it, and let out a quiet snort, shaking her head again.</p><p>For the rest of the night, Robin somehow found it much easier to concentrate.</p>
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